Then face about, ringing their brazen shields
Against their corslets, or uplifted high
Threaten the ecchoing skies; whilst steely blades
Harsh murmur, and the clanging targets sound
Alternate struck, the martial concert close.
The equestrian games of this denomination required more room and apparatus for spectators: therefore probably they fenced in a larger space of ground, of a circular or oval form, with a vallum, to keep the spectators at proper distance, and upon which they might more commodiously behold the sport. This I suppose was provided for by those bowers or burroughs mentioned, where there was no ditch behind; for that would be dangerous, if the people crouding one another, as is natural on those occasions, should thrust the outermost from such an elevation: so that they were a larger sort of amphitheatres, or circs: and this seems expressly intimated by the great Mantuan in those verses,
Munera principio ante oculos circoque locantur
In medio ————
Et tuba commissos medio canit aggere ludos.
These games on horseback he thus describes: